Staff writer
A Marion man was lucky enough to escape with minor injuries when he was struck by a fertilizer truck while crossing Third St. in his motorized wheelchair Friday.
It was better than the last time he was hit on his wheelchair, Robert Morse said. The first time he was hit by a vehicle was when he lived in Hillsboro. That time he was hospitalized with a broken left leg. Gangrene set in and the leg had to be amputated at the knee, Morse said.
On Friday, Morse was crossing on the south side of the intersection with Main when a truck driven by Lowell Foth, Hillsboro, turned south and struck the right side of Morse’s wheelchair with the left side of the truck bumper. The wheelchair was pushed about 40 feet south in the northbound lane.
Morse said he didn’t see the truck coming.
“I didn’t see him at all,” Morse said. “He came around that corner and hit me. I didn’t even have my senses come back to me until I got out of the hospital.”
After the accident, Morse complained of pain in his right hip and leg — the side that was struck by the bumper of the truck.
Morse said he spent four hours at St. Luke Hospital but the emergency room physician said he had no broken bones.
“‘You’re just bruised up a lot and it’s going take a while for you to heal,’” Morse recalls the doctor saying. “I’ve been putting ice on my hip to try to get the swelling down. I was in such a state I didn’t even know what was happening.”
Nevertheless, Morse knows how lucky he is.
“If I wouldn’t have caught the end of his bumper I’d have been under the bottom of his truck and I’d be pushing up daisies,” Morse said. “All I can do is thank the good Lord for sparing my life. The good Lord came to me when it happened. He told me he still has plans for me.”
Morse said he doesn’t know what caused the wheelchair to separate from the truck bumper as his chair was being pushed along the street.
“He spun me around,” Morse said. “He totally whipped me around and my seat was on the back side.”
Foth pulled over the truck about a block and a half south and walked back to Morse.
Morse said he thought Foth was going to leave the scene because of the time it took him to pull over.
Morse’s wheelchair remained upright, but when he tried to use the hand control, the chair did not respond.
“I need my scooter to get around on and it’s demolished,” Morse said at the scene.
Morse was able to borrow a scooter from Alan Hett.
“It was my dad’s chair, and all four of us inherited it,” Hett said. “He called me that evening.”
Hett took the scooter to Morse the following morning.
Morse said he’s been given no accident report or any information on the truck driver yet.
“For me to get a police report they tell me it’s going to cost me $10,” Morse said.